KABUL: Ahmad Shkeb recalls seeing a dark-blue car ram into a bus. Then he heard a terrible bang, and a huge light flashed before his eyes.

It took him several seconds to realise it was yet another Taliban suicide bombing, this time in his own neighbourhood in the southern Kabul. At least 13 people were killed, including six soldiers and four children, in the Dec 5 attack.

“It was the most horrific scene I’d ever seen in my life,” said Shkeb, a tailor in his late 20s. Torn-apart bodies, some missing an arm or a leg, lay next to the mangled wreckage of a smoking and bloodied army bus.

Year 2007 stood out for many things in Afghanistan: the death of the last king, Zahir Shah; a jump in the opium crop to account for 93 per cent of the world supply; an urgent focus on the need to develop the Afghan security forces.

But it was the violence that was arguably uppermost, with 2007 the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the extremist Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001 for harbouring Al Qaeda.

There were 77 suicide attacks just in the first six months – about twice the number for the same period last year and 26 times higher than from January to June 2005, according to a United Nations survey.

Toward the end of this year that figure had risen to around 140, including the deadliest of all: in November a suicide bomber blew himself up in Baghlan province as school children welcomed visiting lawmakers.

The nearly 80 dead included 59 school pupils and six parliamentarians.

Baghlan is in the north, and the attack – besides targeting Afghanistan’s first democratically elected parliament – illustrated how the Taliban-led insurgency has spread out of hotspots in the east and south.

“Even here you don’t feel safe,” said shopkeeper Mohammad Esah in the town of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, where German troops admit their movements are restricted after a March suicide attack in Kunduz killed three of their own.

The military says suicide attacks show the weakness of the rebels and that they are not able to act as a proper military force.

But they have ratcheted up civilian casualties, although the military has also been accused of killing hundreds in their operations, sowing a fear that has undermined confidence in the authorities.

Casualties were also high among the 60,000 international troops, mainly from the United States, who are helping the fragile government fight the insurgents and build up its own forces.

Nearly 220 lost their lives, most of them in combat, up from about 190 last year.

However, the biggest losses among the security forces were for the Afghan police, which lost around 700 men.

In all about 6,000 people were killed – most of them rebels and many from Pakistan, which has come under mounting international pressure to clean up its pro-Taliban areas along the border with Afghanistan.

Defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the Taliban may have stepped up attacks to avenge the killing of leaders like military mastermind Mullah Dadullah, whose death in May was the biggest success against the insurgents.

In a visit in December, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the increase in violence was in part because security forces were going after the rebels more aggressively.

He called on Afghanistan’s allies to step up their support for the Nato-led force; the alliance’s chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made similar pleas throughout the year.

President Hamid Karzai blamed “terrorist hideouts outside Afghanistan” and support in some countries for “terrorist elements and Al Qaeda” – a probable reference to Pakistan.—AFP